The St. Petersburg Masterskaya Theatre Repertoire

In a Fishing Boat

The Galilean Fishermen's Monologues
A performance by Roman Gabria

" ... The prototypes of the characters in these monologues were the main participants in the life of Jesus, the carpenter's son from Nazareth, some of his disciples, close people, and random witnesses. I wanted to tell in simple language perhaps the most complex story in world history. This story has attracted the attention of artists, directors, writers and poets for centuries - from Leonid Andreev to Jorge Luis Borges, from Zhukovsky to Pasternak, from Bulgakov to Aitmatov. The Roman historian Philo mentions a certain itinerant preacher crucified in Jerusalem. Therefore, he existed, he was. And I wanted to imagine him, that real person. To touch him, to look at him closer.
It's important that the characters are placed in simple human and historical conditions. Occupied Galilee in the first decades of the Christian era is a complex environment. But only here, under conditions of total unfreedom, could a man emerge who changed the world forever, only here could a new morality based on compassion and love of neighbor be born. We tried to create our own artistic reality out of images and meanings, in which the ancient history could find a new life.

A very important part of our work is the soundtrack of the performance. In it we have finally managed to combine my favorite electronic sound (the composer is my regular collaborator, Vladislav Krylov) with live sound. To achieve a special oriental flavor, an ancient instrument - the oud - will be played live on stage. Its author's themes will be performed by Andrey Didik. First of all, the spectator is waiting for a deeply musical performance, full of different combinations of sounds and melodies.

When composing the visual part, I was inspired by Russian and Western medieval painting, from Bosch and Giotto to van der Weyden, Grunewald, Ivanov and Ge. I think it is hard to find a better helper than classical painting. I really hope that together with Nikolai Kuglyant, the director of plastic arts, we managed to paint our own, lively and emotional pictures.

According to Nikolai Slobodyanik, the production designer, the spatial solution was conceived to be as illustrative as possible: on stage is a large five-meter fishing boat, inside and around which the stories of Galilean fishermen unfold. But that's what is so dear to me about our performance, its inner story, which comes out of paintings and bookshelves into the theater, into a simple wooden boat, into poetry, into the text".

Premiere – November 14, 2019
Duration – 2 hours without intermission
For audiences from 16 years old

PRODUCTION TEAM:

  • Stage director and author of the text – Roman Gabria
  • Production designer – Nikolay Slobodyanik
  • Lighting designer – Dmitry Albul
  • Composers: guitar – Andrey Didik, soundtrack - Vladislav Krylov
  • Plastics – Nikolay Kuglyant
  • Assistant Director – Ekaterina Zatolokina
Running